Several months ago, The Daily Citizen reported on Taylor Swift’s attempt to promote liberal legislation through her new song “You Need to Calm Down.” Now she’s taken her agenda to the big stage.
In case you weren’t watching the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) earlier this week, Taylor Swift won an award for Video of the Year for her new music video. She used the opportunity to promote the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories in federal law.
After singing her song on stage at the VMAs, the words “Equality Act” flashed in large letters across the screens. Swift then used her acceptance speech to further promote the Equality Act. She said, “This is a fan-voted award, so I first want to say thank you to the fans because in this video several points were made so you voting for this video means that you want a world where we’re all treated equally under the law regardless of who we love or how we identify.”
Then she urged fans to sign a petition to spark the passage of the Act. Swift said, “At the end of this video there was a petition and there still is a petition for the Equality Act which basically just says we all deserve equal rights under the law.”
Unsurprisingly, Swift earned a significant amount of positive press coverage from the event. Brent Bozell writes in CNSNews, “The network news shows gushed over her leftist activism and the ‘Taylor Effect’ they expect it to provide. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos said, ‘She’s doing it the way she does her music … with intent and with intelligence.’”
Now, since Taylor Swift is a singer by trade, I’m not sure we can expect her to have thorough knowledge of politics. In this instance, she has her political policy goals very wrong. The Equality Act would have disastrous consequences for many Americans, especially women.
According to The Daily Signal, the Equality Act would have seven negative effects, three of which will be highlighted here. First, it would “penalize Americans who don’t affirm new sexual norms or gender ideology.” Many Americans, specifically religious business owners could be sued for obeying their faith by not serving events that they have religious disagreements to like same-sex weddings or so-called gender-transition parties.
Second, “It would compel speech.” Teachers who believe sex is immutable and biological could be fired for referring to students by their biological sex. In addition, “Both federal and private employers could face costly lawsuits if they fail to implement strict preferred pronoun policies. Employees could be disciplined if they fail to comply, regardless of their scientific or moral objections.”
Third, “It would allow more biological males to defeat girls in sports.” Since so-called discrimination on the basis of gender identity would be illegal, every biological man who wishes to compete in a woman’s sport would be allowed to do so. This could be extremely dangerous for female athletes. “Under radical gender identity policies, female athletes have sustained gruesome injuries at the hands of male competitors. In high school wrestling, female athletes have forfeited rather than compete against transgender athletes on testosterone.”
It seems the hyper-politicization of the VMAs may have contributed to a large decline in ratings. According to Fox News, “The show was seen by 4.9 million viewers live on Monday. That’s down from last year’s audience of 5.2 million, as the annual event has slid in television viewers each year since reaching 10.3 million in 2014.”
A greater than 50% decline in viewership within five years should tell the VMAs that something has gone very wrong. More vulgar music and increased politicization of the event certainly doesn’t help. Maybe if singers like Taylor Swift spent more time creating better music, and less time pushing liberal policies, people might again take interest in the VMAs.
Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP